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National Museums Liverpool blog
Make the Link, Break the Chain won the International Award at the UK Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence 2008.
It is always nice to win awards but probably the best measure of success for this project has been the number of schools wanting to take part in 'Make the Link, be the change', our second international school twinning project. This focuses on climate change and is running again in partnership with Plan UK. Fifty North West based schools have signed up to participate in this project and they will be working with schools in Togo, Malawi, El Salvador, Brazil, Philippines, India and Kenya. Let's hope we can make this project a similar success.
This success has come on the back of one of the films produced for the project being selected to be shown at 'Youth Producing Change' at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. Learn more here.
2007 marked the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in the UK. Slavery was finally abolished in the Americas in 1888, but despite this many people continued and still continue to live in slavery. It is estimated that today 20 million people across the world are slaves.
To mark the anniversary of the abolition National Museums Liverpool worked with the children's development agency, Plan UK on Make the Link, Break the Chain; an anti-slavery project linking schools along the slave triangle. The slave triangle was a shipping route linking European ports (including Liverpool), West Africa and the Americas. It resulted in Africans being taken into slavery in the Americas, and slave-produced goods being taken to Europe. You can learn more about the slavery triangle in this feature.
During the project pupils from Brazil, Haiti, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Liverpool have worked together using an online communication system to explore three core questions:
Using forums, email and a nine-lesson plan, the pupils have been looking at the experiences of countries directly affected by the slave trade and how this has shaped their own country. They are also looking at case studies of modern slavery and how it can be tackled and prevented in future. The results of their collaboration are shown here.
Plan UK and National Museums Liverpool, in association with the Guardian, ran a Young Reporters' Competition. Hundreds of entrants submitted essays on subjects related to slavery and freedom - well done to them all. These are the winners. You can read their essays here or see them on the gallery at the International Slavery Museum:
1st - Che Ramsden
2nd -Chelsey Nicole-Porter
3rd - Rebecca Hare
The prize was a visit to Senegal where Che discovered more about Plan's work to tackle child labour in the country. There was also a trip to Liverpool (see below). Learn more on this special Guardian webpage.
In August 2007 three students from the partner countries came to Liverpool. Not only did they help us celebrate the launch of the International Slavery Museum and Slavery Remembrance Day, but they are also worked with an experienced artist to create a truly international piece of art. The theme was the Children's Charter and how we can preserve liberty today. The piece will be touring local schools before taking pride of place in the Anthony Walker Education Centre at the new museum.
Chernor Bah meets pupils from New Heys School
In 2007 Chernor Bah - a young man from Sierra Leone who champions children's rights in his war-torn homeland - visited Liverpool. He met pupils from New Heys School and talked about his work and what they were doing for the Make the Link, Break the Chain project. You can learn more about that visit on the Plan UK website.
Children from Plans advisory panel have been putting celebrities in the hotseat and asking them about modern slavery, the importance of learning about slavery and preventing the trade. So far there are three interviews for you to watch:
